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Thursday, January 28, 2016

From Mom’s Diary… 1941 - Sports on Radio

From Mom’s Diary… 1941

In fall of 1941, I had already had my 2nd birthday. We lived on a rented
farm on the county line between Carroll and Greene County, north east
of Coon Rapids, Iowa.

This post is mostly about sports broadcasts the family listened to on the radio. On August 18, Paul, Mom's dad was 49 years old, and Buzzy was 13. One weekend in the fall, Mom mentioned that her Dad was in Iowa City at an Iowa Hawkeyes football game.

Mom had mentioned much about radio, but over a couple of weeks in the fall, we got these:

Monday, Sept. 29:

… Had fire in the heater. Read at nite. Listened to Louis K.O. Nova. …

[From Wikipedia article on boxer/actor Lou Nova: “On September 28, 1941 he fought Joe Louis for the heavyweight title. Nova was knocked down once, in the 6th round. Nova made a poor showing. According to (The Ring magazine) he didn’t win a round and took a terrible beating in the sixth round. The end was somewhat controversial because the fight was stopped with just one second left in the round when Nova arose unsteadily from the knockdown.]

[From Wikipedia article: 1941 World Series: “The 1941 World Series matched the New York Yankees against the Brooklyn Dodgers. … The name “Subway Series” arose for a World Series played between these two New York City teams.” This was the first meeting of seven between these two teams from 1941 to 1956 (the Dodgers only won in 1955). Yankees manager was Joe McCarthy, Dodgers skipper was Leo Durocher. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1941_World_Series]

Sunday, Oct 5:

I went to church. Pete & Billy stayed home. Went in to folks for dinner. Karl & Howard there too. Mom & Dad went to Lou Textor’s Funeral. Listened to World Series. Mickey Owen dropped the ball on the last strike to let Yanks win. Home & chores early. Left Billy at folks & went to show “Bad Men of Missouri.” To Cafe with Helen & Elmer afterwards.

[From same article: “The series was punctuated by the Dodgers’ Mickey Owen’s dropped third strike of a sharply breaking curveball (a suspected spitball) pitched by Hugh Casey in the ninth inning of Game 4. The play led to a Yankees rally and brought them one win away from another championship.”]

My comments:

Guess I was exposed the sports via the media at a very early age. I probably heard those broadcasts, though I likely didn’t pay any attention.

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